


Time

by M_malf0y



Category: Shadow and Bone (TV), The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Ending, Character Death, Epilogue, Other, greif, how it should have ended, i hate mal, one chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29528739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_malf0y/pseuds/M_malf0y
Summary: The “after” section of Ruin and Rising if *cough* someone *cough* stayed dead.
Relationships: Mal Oretsev/Alina Starkov, The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov
Kudos: 28





	Time

**Author's Note:**

> Obvious spoilers for Ruin and Rising. A small section is taken directly from the original ending, and all credit goes to Leigh Bardugo.

There stood the remains of an orphanage. Not many dared to venture over to the grounds, especially after hearing the tales of what happened there, and why the building was as dilapidated as it was. All but one young girl, who’s hair faded from red to bright white. She received strange looks, either from the deep bags forming under the eyes, or her fragile state. Maybe even the fact that she was strikingly familiar to some of the residents who heard the tales of Sankta Alina. Yet, nobody questioned when she took the land in as her own and began to rebuild it from the ground up, with the help of friends in high places.

She never spoke to many people, keeping to herself and her work, finally allowing her hair to return to it’s natural white as time passed. Whispers of a dead lover circulated around the quaint town, as rumors flowed as easy as the river in the mouths of the townspeople. But, nobody would ever know the true horrors that kept the girl locked up in the crumbled ruins of the old orphanage.

Time heals everything, but healing Alina Starkov would take more than that.

Each night as the girl closed her eyes, she felt the emptiness of the bed beside her, and the sharp intake of breath that her lover drew as her dagger pierced his skin, claiming his life for the sake of Ravka.

I am become a blade.

Every time her eyelids closed, she was met with the vision of haunting blue eyes, staring up at her without any spark. The girl could feel the blood dripping down her skin from the dagger, warm and bright red. Her throat still felt horace from crying out to him, even as the last strings of life dripped from his body, taking him from her.

But it was not only the tracker that she felt the absence of those lonely nights. The girl found herself aimlessly attempting to tug on the once present tether that connected dark and light. The string that connected her to true balance. Her mind went to pull onto something that wasn’t there. Something that she also killed.

The girl was forever haunted by the look in his quartz eyes- not of a monster, but a beautiful boy, trapped in an eternity that was close to an end. The feeling of sticky tears trailing down her face as the man she once swore to kill laid dying in her arms, asking of her to remember him as Aleksander. A boy with a name, and not a title. The boy who listened too closely and lost everything he had held dear. A boy whose grave would be spat on, if one ever existed. The boy who’s heart now held the blade of her dagger, still stained with the crimson blood of her lover. The man he wanted to be.

Don’t let me be alone. The dying words of the man who hurt so many, all stemmed from his fear of being alone. Yet now that he was gone, she was truly one half of a whole, for sunlight is worthless without darkness to shine in. Although, there was no light left to prevail.

The darkness never frightened the girl again, even though she had nothing to fight it with.

  
  
  


There were still wars, and from those wars came orphans. The girl turned the ruins of the old Duke’s house, once full of things to be seen and not touched into a place for children to call a home when violence tore through what they once knew. War was inevitable, and the girl knew that all too well. 

An oil lantern was always lit to fend off the darkness from those who were still afraid, and the grand piano in the music room was left uncovered, allowing the once hollow halls to be filled with great music. Children sang and laughed, playing around in a manner so unlike the way the girl was raised, along with the boy she once loved. Yet, she knew that she was doing good, and that his death was not forgotten. 

Children with no parents to call their own learned the stories of the brave, handsome young boy who sacrificed his life for the good of Ravka. No matter how much it pained the girl to tell, she illustrated the boy’s life nevertheless. She spoke of him as an old friend, whose life was torn away too soon, but for all the right reasons. 

The staff and children noticed how in all the tales of the boy she once knew, there were never mentions of the masters of the small science who were ever prevalent. No man who controlled the darkness, or Sankta of the sun. It was an unspoken rule that one was to never ask about the sun summoner, and they all abided by it.

Wealthy and mad, were words spoken about the white haired girl who ran the orphanage. The staff never approved of her. She allowed the students to be too loud, too much money was spent on sugar for tea, coal for winter, and books filled with stories of magic. Why would one go to such lengths to make orphan children happy?

She mostly kept to herself, when not reading to the young students, or discussing matters with the well paid staff. Some say that at nights, they can hear the haunting cries of someone who lost so much, and gained too little. Some well eyes children noticed the small grisha-made dagger that was always tightly nestled in her belt. When a young girl, no older than five, asked about it, the woman simply replied, “It belonged to someone I once knew.”

She never said who, for it pained her to mention the white haired Sankta who died alongside the tracker and Aleksander that night on the fold. The girl who would never come back.

The students learned math and geography, science and art. Tradesmen were brought in from local towns and villages to offer apprenticeships. The new King hoped to abolish the draft in a few years time, and if he succeeded, every Ravkan would need some kind of trade. When the children were tested for Grisha powers, they were allowed to choose whether or not to go to the Little Palace, and they were always welcome back at Keramzin. At night, they were told to keep the young King in their prayers— Korol Rezni, who would keep Ravka strong.

  
  
  


Although the girl was certainly far from nobility, she had friends in higher places. Constantly, gifts marked with the royal seal would arrive, filled to the brim with goods like blankets for warmth, or books to stock the library. The staff noticed the girl smile at the small parchments left alongside the lavish gift, even sometimes allowing a laugh to escape her lips. They never saw her laugh before.

Once a man arrived with a fleet of toy boats that the children launched on the creek in a miniature regatta. The teachers noted that the stranger was young and handsome, with golden hair and hazel eyes, but most definitely odd. He stayed late to dinner and never once removed his gloves. Every winter, during the feast of Sankt Nikolai, a troika would make its way up the snowy road and three Grisha would emerge dressed in furs and thick wool kefta—red, purple, and blue—their sledge weighed down with presents: figs and apricots soaked in honey, piles of walnut candies, mink-lined gloves, and boots of butter-soft leather. They stayed up late, long after the children had gone to bed, talking and laughing, telling stories, eating pickled plums and roasting lamb sausages over the fire.That first winter, when it was time for her friends to leave, the girl ventured out into the snow to say goodbye, and the stunning raven-haired Squaller handed her another gift. 

“A blue kefta,” said the math teacher, shaking her head. “What would she do with that?”

“Maybe she knew a Grisha who died,” replied the cook, taking note of the tears that filled the girl's eyes. They did not see the note that read,

_ You will always be one of us _

The girl knew grief, as she spent her days clutching the dagger in her hands, or trying to pull on a tether that had been gone for years now. They couldn’t see the small eclipse necklace that she kept over her heart, under her shirts and away from the world. She never wanted him to be alone. 

One day, on the rare occasion that the girl stayed outside of her room for more than what was needed of her, the golden eyed man walked by the small window seat to find her playing with the rays of sun that speckled into the glass, a sympathetic frown forming on his face. At the feeling of his uncovered hand, the girl allowed herself to cry into his arms. She cried over all those she had lost, over the boy whose name was replaced by a title, or her tracker who’s life she took. The tracker that she had wished foolishly would be there beside her.

Time. something that for a small period seemed irrelevant to the girl, eventually healed her. Yet, the scar over her heart never faded.


End file.
